Page 73 of Elven Shadow

Something that could render even a garden-variety magical criminal capable of some seriously old-school magic like the casting circle and power runes Boyd had almost completed in front of a choking Purse Lady fighting off a demon-clown made of smoke and light?

That was old-school Xaharí magic, right there. Not typically the kind one found on low-level thugs on the street.

Plus, it was something Rebecca had never seen before, which made it particularly rare.

She reached toward the Cruorcian’s slack fist, pried his slightly gray-tinted fingers open with her own, and took a moment to study the so-called artifact.

“A doll,” she murmured. “Seriously? We’re mixing old-world magic with Voodoo now? What the hell is this?”

Four inches long, narrow, and relatively humanoid-shaped without any other defining features, this little artifact was the cause of all this destruction out here in a back galley.

Thiswas the reason Boyd had decided it was better to take his chances against her than to just hand it over. This little thing made of cloth and straw and a couple of tiny stones embedded in its raggedy head for eyes.

There had to be something more to it.

There always was.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t anyone around anymore to ask about the doll’s origins or the specifics of its uses. But at least no one would stop her from taking it with her and investigating the thing a little further in her free time.

Worth a shot.

With a shrug, she closed her open hand around the clown doll—or whatever the hell this was—tightly squeezed her fist, and a puff of swirling dark-silver mist like mercurial gas seeped between her fingers.

When she opened her hand again, no trace of the artifact remained.

There were very few places to truly hide something valuable if one wanted to make it impossible to find. Rebecca had access to a few interdimensional tricks of her own.

So far, those tricks didn’t seem to have been affected much by her escape from Xahar’áhsh to create anonymous, low-key, undiscovered lives for herself in this world.

Just as she was about to stand, feeling particularly pleased with herself, her gaze landed on the Cruorcian’s open hand floating atop that filmy puddle in the asphalt.

Normally, Rebecca didn’t pay much attention to identifying marks of anyone she’d had a fun tussle with in the dark, but this particular mark she recognized.

This one had absolutely no business whatsoever being here.

Not in the Midwest. Not in Chicago. Definitely not in an empty parking lot at the end of a back alley in Burnside.

What the fuck had she just stepped innow?

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The mark was incredibly small, maybe a quarter of an inch wide at most, placed at the very base of the guy’s palm right above the wrist joint.

No wonder she hadn’t seen it until now.

Based on what she knew of marks like this, though, not to mention the kind of Xaharí old-worlders who generally used them, the mark might have also been applied with the sole purpose of remaining invisible until the magical it belonged to passed beyond the veil from this life.

Meant to show up only in death.

Meant to identify the bodies of the poor bastards who’d found themselves with a mark like that in the first place.

It wasn’t a randomly chosen tattoo or a bit of fun, subtle body art. The Cruorcian couldn’t have put it there himself, either. That wasn’t how this kind of thing worked, just like cattle didn’t sear themselves with the brand of their rancher.

The magical chattel belonging to the Azyyt Ra’al didn’t bond themselves to their masters.

That bond was forged by force, branded on the wrist to mark the master’s property.

Boyd hadn’t just been some low-level thug trying to boost his reputation or take a random human’s terror for a little joyride at night. This guy had been a slave, his life forfeited into the service of the Azyyt Ra’al. Most likely by force and entirely against his will.

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